


Le Dilemme

by helahades



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, NSFW, Past Abuse, Possible Character Death, Reader is a Princess of Another Realm, Seduction, Smut, Thor with an Oral Fixation, Trauma, ptsd mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helahades/pseuds/helahades
Summary: Summary: After you kill your abusive father, Thor is sent to kill you. He makes a different call.  You make him regret it.He’s finally caught up with you, across the stars. Can you persuade him to let you go a second time?
Relationships: Thor/OC, Thor/Reader, Thor/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Le Dilemme

\- Somewhere in Andalucía, Spain -

Letting your eyes flutter closed, you think of the warmth of his skin as you stretch back into the silk sheets.

His warrior heavy steps resound, bouncing off the villa’s stone floors and trembling your heart, though you won’t show him when he arrives. Is it possible for steps to sound disappointed? Angry, even?

He had chased you across the cosmos. Sniffing out every stardust trail, regretting his decision to spare you. Maybe you didn’t have the good in him that he’d hoped. After killing your father, whom your realm called king, the wrath of his blind followers descended upon you, and your happy corner of the universe descended into chaos. Odin assured them all would be well, and that Asgard would put an end to the treasonous wretch (that’s you).

Upon arriving to your realm, to the throne room you had barricaded against the mob, Thor saw you with the haunted grace of trauma, and knew he couldn’t kill you then. Hair a wreck, bloodied dress, and reddened eyes that hadn’t shed enough tears to defend against premeditation.

You had been planning this, not planning to go through—that was, until the king decided to banish you, to strike you, to cover his wrong doings. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! You would have made an excellent queen. You care more than he could, but as fate would have it, sentiment seems to be a downfall.

When Thor breezed over the castle walls and dropped into the open air throne room, he saw you, truly. You were good, you only wanted freedom from chains. Freedom from a father who could only make you feel safe if he was dead. Freedom to love your people as a queen and not a murderer. None of those things came, and they never will.

You were good, yes. You were. The stars were once nothing, and the realms used to be self contained. The past says nothing.

—

When he reaches the heavy wooden door and a deep squeak after, he’s almost forgotten why he’s here. Almost. Covered only by a thin linen nightshirt, you’re a heavenly vision. You’re lying back in a bed that’s bigger than big enough for him, for you, maybe for the whole city. Free of the restrictive slimming fashion of your realm, along with the ornate hair stylings, you look loose and free, yet your soul is anything but.

“Princess,” he greets in a mourning tone, foreboding like a drizzle of rain. He’s never been so formal. He’s also never seemed so soft for you, so far from Odin’s tyranny.

“At ease Odinson. I’m no more fit to be called a princess than you are a king,” you delay, eyes fluttering open.

You had met him before, been enamored with him before the chain of happenings that led to him coming to execute you… for the first time. Royal formality. He was different then. Younger, blonder, brasher. The Thor before you has matured something decadent in a couple hundred years.

Wandering closer to the bed, his sapphire eyes are all over you, examining thoughtfully. The peach linen garment plunging, your skin dewy and smooth, your gaze just as piercing as ever. When he was younger, and met all the heirs on boring diplomacy trips, there were only a few he truly liked. You were the first.

Your eyes mischievous, there was always a plan dancing behind them, and he quickly favored you. Upon entering every space, you would set up your escape, upon meeting every being, you analyze, analyze, analyze for weakness, for corruption.

“I let you live once, princess. Since then, you’ve left spectacle after the last in your wake.”

“But I’m using my strengths for good,” you coo, willing him to see. Rising up to your knees on the bed, you plant gentle palms against his light armor. “We are stronger here, it’s something about Midgard. You know that.”

“Princess”—

“No. You know my name.”

Then, your lips meet. Stubble on soft skin. Hands in hair. He whispers it to you like poetry. He’s gentle, yet impassioned, and you taste his dilemma.

“Let me go,” come your breathless words against his reddened lips, “Once more, and there will be no other disturbances. I only wanted to,” conjuring up fake tears, you tell the real truth, “—only wanted to help them escape a fate like mine.”

And it is true. You’ve been traveling across Midgard, using your strength and untold trauma to your advantage. You kill, yes, but only the husbands and fathers and terrible men that hurt those close to them. You travel to hidden places and listen to hushed whispers that can’t be passed to higher authority. You try to save other could-be-something’s from having their fates ripped from them by men who abuse.

Perhaps to the crown of the highest realm, it seems indecent. But you cannot imagine facing Odin, and having him tell you that violence is not the answer. You can’t imagine the moment—not without also imagining how you’d laugh in his face.

Many argue that all Odin has is born of murder and conquest, and that he locked away his greatest weapon to pretend he could never be capable of those horrors. The great irony is, it worked. Slowly, the other realms have forgotten the history that Asgard has erased, and it’s become easier for Odin to unleash Hel on those who trespass too boldly, in a way that doesn’t serve him.

“If it is known that Odin let a kingslayer escape, that he allowed”—

“But it wouldn’t be Odin. Would it? It would be you. And you were a better man than him the day you were born.”

“You’ll mind your tongue. He is my father, and also your king.”

Voice twisting into a storm, barely restrained, and regrettable, it becomes hard to keep up the act. The distance of your dagger feels enormous from where it lies under the pillows.

“The last time a king demanded my respect… he struck me down in his throne room. And I had his head for it.”

He seizes you in his arms with a careful concern, like he himself is afraid of unseen listeners. With eyes carefully dissecting, he speaks almost lovingly.

“How can I let you roam, when vengeance has you so consumed?”

Rolling your shoulders to loosen his grip, you tug at his armor, and press closer.

“What of vengeance?” Your whisper is gentle against him. It’s sultry like a secret, in the right vibrations, maybe it’s a moan. You press a single kiss to his lips before continuing.

“I’ve already had mine. But if you’re so sure about my fate… I have a proposition for you.”

He hangs onto every word, drunk on intimacy, but still too hardened with the resignation of this mission. Now is the time.

“Would you lie with me? I always wanted to try you.”

His chest tightens, the smell of cloves and mead and man coming stronger than before as his breath is hot against you. Hands on your waist, his final half defense comes weak.

“It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Nothing about you… nothing about us, is proper, lover.”

And he is taken aback. He spent a few moons with you on Odin’s diplomacy. When everyone retired to their chambers, the two of you were out of yours, in the gardens, kissing sweetly, hands questioning under clothes and learning the others warmth. It never went father. The two of you would sit in the gardens breathing with the trees and sharing disdain for royal life. On the darkest nights, you would speak of, but never truly consider, running away.

It would have been perfect then. Marrying for alliance, waking up next to him. But marrying up into Asgard was burning the books. It was ignoring Odin’s infamous spree to collect the realms under his control like they were his to own.

If he’s aware at all, you get the sense that Asgardian princes don’t get the same history lessons as you. Either way, you saw goodness and rebellion in him, that seems to be growing with age. But no one has hooks deeper than a parent who denies true love. You knew that well.

No, you won’t win this by trying to out-wrath Odin. This is a fight won with a gentle caress, with showing him the other side, the love he’s always wanted. Frigga gave time to Loki, Odin to conquest. For your life, you’ll do your best, with all your knowledge, to love him, because in some way, you do.

The air is tense. Not painfully, not awkwardly, but in the living sort of way that the air crackles before lightning breaches. He is upset. How could the world be so cruel? How could his father be so detached, that the only way to presently win his good blessing, is to slay the only soul who has ever truly seen him? You are the only soul he knows that craves leadership, and without veiled cruelty.

You tug at his armor again, and this time, he lets you. You get the chest plate over his head, you throw down his sweeping cloak. You pull down everything, and he lets you, even and especially when you unwind the knot at the back of his head, letting his hair fall onto his shoulders.

He truly is a vision. Seeing him in his bare glory, you have to pause for the awe it brings. He’s looking at you with reverence, and not shying away a bit. A hand around the back of your neck, and he’s kissing you sweetly.

It’s experimental, like your lips are fragile as flower petals, and he’s learning the shape of them for the first time. Soft. Warm. Passionate. He’s so warm, and so lovely, it feels natural to be so close, to have his hand around the back of your neck, and for the other one to rest on your hip before squeezing the flesh there. If he feels so at ease, you’ll make him remember who you are.

You pull his bottom lip between your teeth, breathless from his kiss, and bite just hard enough to sting. As complaint, or a moan, begins to rumble in his chest, the tip of your tongue traces over the pain, before dipping into his mouth to deepen the kiss.

It’s fierce and sweet and slow like honey. You kiss him like you have all the time in the universe, and he kisses with the same fantasy. You have to touch him, and your hands move by themselves. Over the plane of his scar starred chest, the smoothness of the ridges of his ribs, the softness of his tummy, your nails are trailing gently, before your hands rub to his lower back, and his skin is alive and stimulated.

With your hands all over him, his kiss grows fiery, faster, needier. His large palms splay over your thighs, pushing slowly upwards, and rising your thin garment with them, before abruptly deciding to pull it apart at your collar.

Tzzzzzzztttttt!

The fabric strings apart. The two of you melt together. His hands knead your breasts, they stroke down your sides and massage your back, and it is impossible to not be lost in the sensations of his incredible and gentle strength. As he is just about to pull you closer, you pull away, crawl back slowly, and press your body down into the sheets, looking up at him while propped up on your elbows from where your face is directly in line with his cock.

Pressing kisses across him, drawing an invisible line connecting his hips, you gently massage the skin just under, purposefully ignoring his hardened, thick cock.

It is quite the sight, his banded muscles flexing under the tanned skin of his thighs, holding himself back with every ounce of restraint he possesses, enraptured with the state of your control. You press a kiss to the tip of his cock, not touching him anymore in any other way, and the groan that rumbles from his chest sighs past his lips as a restrained moan.

“So good for me,” you coo, “my sweetest love.”

A change in the air has you feeling warmer. A roll of hot sensuality and pheromones comes through you, and straight to your clit. God of fertility, God of your pleasure. Everything’s better with him.

You kiss the tip again, and when he rocks forward, you wrap your lips around it, swirling your tongue and sucking gently. His moan seems to send energy into the quietness of this place, vibrating into the walls.

His hands fall to either side of your jaw, wrapped around the base of your neck. He’s always been a handsy, lover… always needing to be closer, closer, closer.

You feel his cock sliding along your tongue as he eases his hips backward and forwards, using you lovingly, somehow. Hollowing your cheeks with your lips stretched around him, you moan softly around him, indulged by the familiar scent of him, and the feel of his hands pushing into your hair.

Pushing at his hips, you still him so you can take him deeper. Slowly, slowly, slowly, until he loses your eye contact, and tears water in your eyes. Pleasure swirls deep in you to counter the ache in your throat once you hear the earthquake of a groan rumble from his chest. He has had many lovers yes, but has never been so taken as he is with you.

Though very much in the moment, longing overtakes him. He feels his thighs strain. They nearly tremble with his own resistance, with the longing of hundreds of years. He thinks of your skin warm against his palms in dewy, midnight gardens, and now yours are on the back of his thighs. You stroke lightly, then you pull him closer, swallowing him deep, suckling gently.

With the pads of his fingers curling into the roots of your hair, he tugs in warning. That’s all you get before his head tips back and and he groans deeply, cumming across your tongue in reserved spurts. As he pulls out of your mouth, some drips onto your chin, and you pull it back in with a curled and feral tongue, watching him watch you all the while. He hears you swallow, thinks of his seed down your throat, like it’s the easiest thing. He sees you bare your teeth in a smile. It’s only just begun.

Shifting up, and reaching for him, his arms pull you in from where you kneel on the bed, and your legs are around his waist. An arm around yours, and a hand cupping the back of your neck once more, he kisses deep—kisses like the apology he’s yet to speak, kisses like an “I don’t want to hurt you or lose you,” kisses like fire on the dead grass after lightning.

Pulling you both up onto the behemoth of a bed, he lies you down, hovering over you. It’s so comfortable. It’s so right to be here with him that you have to pause to remember your plan. Talk him down. Seduce him down. And if that doesn’t work, put your dagger through his jugular, and live another day. You can’t bear to give weight to the last part.

The bed gives you roots. You feel planted into the comfort of the sheets surrounding you, like you were growing into the earth from there. Like he’s lying you down in your grave, florals around you in the wind. You shiver at the thought and pull him closer.

Heavy cock dragging over your belly as he shifts, your abdomen clenches at the contact. He’s so warm and so right, and as nectarine hues of sunset peak through the windows, you feel the weight of time. You think about him being inside you. Stretching you. You crave it.

He nuzzles into your neck. Hair draping, beard tickling. His body is wedged between your thighs and keeping its hold over you as he tries to think of how to save you. He tries to think of a lie Odin will accept.

You drag your nails along his sides and he folds into your touch. His muscles and very soul seem to roll and shift, finding points to settle like armor, like the plates under the earth.

He shifts and kisses down your body, down to your mound that he can’t see. Hooking his hands under the backs of your knees, he looks at you tenderly, with a warm smile that says you’ll be okay, and he slides your thighs apart and up. You’re open to him.

The peace that overtakes him is wicked. This, he knows. He’s a lover in his soul, before a warrior. Pleasure is instinct.

Taking your ankles in just one hand, he bows his head and spits on your pussy, rubs it in with the other, and chuckles to see that it’s even wetter in response to his actions. You can’t help but squirm, longing for him. He spanks you lightly over your clit, and you jolt with the sparks.

“Not yet, little one.”

He’s always had an oral fixation. Always needing to be sucking, licking, or kissing some part of you. Now that he can share a bed with you, you won’t get off easy.

His hands are on the outsides of your thighs that you’ve willed open, instinctively running from overstimulation, but dying to be met with the pleasure he delivers. Stroking his heavy cock with a free fist, his hand rolls over the head as he simply watches your pussy glimmer and pull at nothing, watches with deep affection as you squirm in wanting, before leaning down and kissing you there, kissing, kissing, and sucking gently—rhythmically.

You can’t stop thinking about how the sensation of his lovely lips is so nice and the pulses of pleasure are so soft, washing back and forth through your nerves like ocean waves. Like the ones he talked about in Asgard when he waxed poetic about marrying you.

It’s soft. So soft. And not overwhelming. And so good. You lift your head enough to see the butter of the sunlight lighting up his hair and the white of the sheets. There’s a glow like heaven.

Then—oh, then, his tongue dips lightly, trying you, testing you, and your chest pushes up, your hands reach for any part of him, and you let loose a raspy whimper that makes him squeeze his cock.

He groans into you, feeling as good—even if he weren’t touching himself to you—as he would if it were him receiving. For him, your pulses of pleasure roll into the air and wrap around him, and he gives them back. For him, even if he weren’t a god, your pleasure is his.

His tasting becomes devouring. Tongue on your labia, licking into you selfishly, before putting pressure on your clit and working back and forth over it, swirling the wetness, sucking harder.

He releases your ankles, and your legs fall over his shoulders as you shudder, curving into him. His previously occupied arm drapes over your tummy, soothing and restraining your hips that work against him, practically fucking yourself onto the warmth texture of his warm and wet tongue.

He sucks harder at your clit, and warmth of your wetness gushes onto him. You’re pulsing with the stimulation and you don’t recognize the high and delighted moan that leaves you when the wetness comes again.

You’re tingling, writhing, when he gently shocks your clit as he sits up. It rips through you smoother than the slap, and you tremble at the way his lighting seems a part of you, how you can’t stop squeezing at nothing.

He’s about to come to lean over you when you catch him at the hip and flip the two of you over. He seems surprised at your strength.

“Had too many earth girls, lover?”

He’s so fond of you, soft even for your breathy teasing.

You push him in the chest until he’s fully down, and he reaches for you, but you slap his hands away, conjuring a sweet smile (that he returns) to chase that. You try then, to conjure anger, which should be easy, because you have so much, or at the very least, you decide to be selfish, to use him. If this could be the end, you’ll take what you want. If he will kill you, you can’t grow soft.

Straddling him, spit in your hand before taking his cock and giving it slow squeezes before pumps, while the other hand supports you against his chest. His eyes flutter as he fights to keep them open, and it’s like he’s forgotten what he’s here for. Good.

Letting your head fall back, you circle the tip of his cock languidly around your clit, moaning uninhibited, and your breathing comes in short gasps because the stimulation is just right. Your wetness comes again, and just in time, dripping onto his skin before you sink onto his cock slowly.

He’s… big. huge. girthy. Big, big, big. The burn sings within you and you can’t help your gasping breaths or the way you forget to deny his affection when his hands come stroking over your back, over your thighs, then squeezing your hips. Your eyes flutter at the thought he must feel how overstimulated you already are. You push deeper than you should, moving faster than you can, chasing the moans, you’re rewarded with when you take more of him.

You push at your hair, trying to get everything away from you because suddenly your body is hot. Still gripping the base of his cock, you stroke it into you, fluttering your eyelashes as you whisper.

“Take me.”

And he does. He sits up, fire in the oceans of his eyes as they turn deeper, the longing turned to darker lust. His hands stroke up your back, and one settles at the back of your neck, where he loves it, while the other squeezes the flesh of your hip. He lets his eyes close, relishing in the final slow moment of you fully taking the rest of his cock, and they open. They’re dark as night.

A couple of slow and deliberate strokes up into you have you whimpering, the ancient bed frame along with you, readying you, before he picks up the pace.

Your eyes roll back into your head, one breath never coming quick enough to prepare for the next stroke. He notices. The hand on the back of your neck grabs you firmly by the jaw, and he kisses you hard as he fucks into you, and you gasp the air in, muscles tensed trying to find stability on the earthquake of this pounding, of the pleasure, now like rolls of thunder that come through you like they were meant to. He’s watching your face so intently, you almost hide from him.

Another kiss, before both of his hands are on your hips, guiding you as your face falls into his neck, weak with the feelings he brings. You’re up, then down. Your hips curl and rock, rolling over him over and over, and some part of your brain surrenders you to him, movements mindless.

His breaths are heavy, his whole body sure with the goal of loving on you, and the heat of his skin falls around you like clouds. You melt back just a little, hand stabilizing on his thigh as he slows just a bit, indulging whatever you’re going for with a curious look. He curves into you slowly, not less intensely, letting you feel the whole form and stretch of him inside you, and you reach back, best you can, and tug softly at his balls, rolling them against you as if you can will the cum into you.

The thunder that comes from his chest and the way it breaks is something you wish you could keep in a bottle forever. He kisses you again and tears fall from your eyes.

You’re high on him, and you wish fate wasn’t acting so cruelly. You can hardly remember your backup plan… Is this a plan at all?

Warmth gushes into you, and you push your hips down, wanting to feel it deep. His cum inside you is hot, finding your temperature like candle wax on the skin. His mouth falls open in bliss, and your face is in his neck again.

—

It’s only when you wake that you find that at some point you both fell asleep. The sky is black. A breeze pushes through the light curtains of the open windows. He pulls you closer. You scoot hazily down his body, rolling him onto his back.

Knowing what you want, he straightens his legs and turns his thighs out just enough, and you lie on the inside of one as your hand finds his cock. You stroke him lazily, flattening your tongue and licking before sucking the base, then sitting up to take him fully. An earthquake from his chest followed by a white hot flash in the sky outside. He cums in your mouth and kisses you after you swallow it.

He holds you.

You fall asleep.

—

When you wake, he doesn’t, and the sky is still black.

You could cry when the fear snakes around your heart. Your dagger lies cold. Too far. It’s under his pillow.

The floors are too old. Too creaky for you to run away again. What do you do now? How can you kill a god?

More importantly, should you? He loves you. That much is apparent. He’s never wanted to kill you, but he is the son of a conqueror. You’re sure Odin had the same pure heart, once. They always turn.

Odin will not let this go. He will see that you are killed this time, even if it isn’t at Thor’s hand. Surely, what’s worse, is that whoever comes next will be cruel. They may even toy with you, torture you, as bringers of death do.

What you know is, that if it is Thor, he won’t hurt you. But you don’t want to die at all. By any man’s hand.

Blooms of pleasure linger somewhere in you, and you realize you underestimated him. Or rather, his effortless power to make you fall in love with him again. Your eyes water, but you refuse to cry, deciding to try for your blade, knowing you’ll feel safer with it in your grasp.

You walk your fingers to his pillow, freezing at the start of his every breath, heart racing at how each pass of your fingers seems to slide through the whole room. You think you remember him being a deep sleeper.

You wedge your hand under the edge of his pillow.

Close your eyes.

Deep breath.

You find the handle.

When your eyes open again, you find yourself shaking. Even worse, you find him looking at you. You let go of the dagger immediately, shift closer like you’re sleepy, and stroke his face.

“Hello,” you whisper, cursing hard internally as you hear it come choked.

It feels like hours go by.

“Hello,” his sleepy voice rumbles back.

He doesn’t go any further than you do. He wants you to lead the conversation. You fear for what that means.

“I just—ah—I wanted to be closer.”

He chuckles softly, like rain, and it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“…That so, princess?”

When he shifts and reaches under his head, you can’t bear to look as he pulls out your very familiar dagger. There is no word that wouldn’t echo and die.

“Closer to me, princess,” and it rings terribly, “or closer to this,” he says as he turns it over, holding it by the blade.

He’s offering it to you, and you don’t know if he could do anything worse. But you take it, because you need it.

“I just—…at least—don’t call me princess.”

“But that’s who you are, love,” he speaks softly, “isn’t it?”

The tears run over your nose, they spread into the sheets. You can’t bring yourself to speak, so he continues.

“You deserve more than you’ve gotten. It isn’t fair that you’ve been treated as you have.”

“But fair enough that you have to kill me,” you croak.

“Not at all.”

He curses under his breath then, in one of the many languages he speaks that you don’t understand.

“I can’t betray the throne again…you know I can’t.”

He eyes the dagger as you turn it in your palm, before looking up at you.

“What were you planning, sweet girl?”

You suddenly remember how you could only think of surviving. How you would have driven it through his skull. Bile rises to your throat, and more tears to your eyes. You hate to feel so stuck.

“You won’t speak. But we both know the choices.”

You tense as he pulls you to him. But he is gentle. You’re in his lap and he’s clasping your fist around the dagger handle between his two hands.

“Make your choice.”

It is a command. He isn’t a king, but he is. More so than Odin.

You take a breath.

—

It’s a clear night from the castle, and in the gardens, you lie with Thor, looking at the star freckled sky. The air is cool, and your heart is a ball of fire, alive with the warmth of him next to you. You’re young royalty. Each day is full of pretension and false smiles. His visit is the most exciting thing to happen in a while.

“Let me show you something,” he says from next to you, and you can’t find any reason to deny him.

He’s beautiful. Golden. Loud. Always says what he thinks. When Odin glares at him it’s like he can’t feel the weight of it. You wish you were always so bold with your own father. Thor listens to your ideas. He notices everything. The both of you are smarter than anyone entertains, and you’re both high enough on pubescent overconfidence to ignore them. He understands you. And his company lights up your world.

You nod eagerly and he stretches both hands out to the sky.

Nothing.

You start to look at him, unsure of what you should see. Then the thin wisps of clouds roll thicker, darker. A rip of light jumps through them, lingering just a moment, before the whole sky is rolling and alight with streaks of bone white fire. It’s beautiful.

Your heart races with excitement. Then the sky explodes—you think. A loud tearing boom that pushes at your eardrums and each fiber of your being. You’re shaken.

It’s louder than glass hitting the wall.

It’s louder than the slamming of a door.

It’s louder than your father’s yelling, or your crying in the nights.

You can’t hear anything. Your face is wet.

Your senses pulse back.

Thor is hugging you, shaking you gently, running through apologies. He tried to uncurl your body from the ball it’s fallen into.

“I didn’t mean for it to be so loud. Father says I should only conjure with the hammer. I didn’t know—I’m sorry.”

“Is it—,” you sniffle and clutch at his arms around you, “is it gone?”

“Yes.”

You look up. Yes. The sky is silent. But your head is not.

“Don’t go.”

You mutter it like you do when someone gets mad. You don’t know why you said it that day. He was never. Maybe you felt like there was something to fix.

“I won’t love, not ever. You’re safe with me, always.”

Thor begs Loki to wash your mind with pretty dreams that night. And so, you dream of what you long for. The clouds. The sky. Escape.

—

\- Andalucía -

You press the tip of the blade to his throat, but it’s half hearted.

“If you’re here to kill me, then why don’t you just finish the job, Odinson?”

You try so hard to quiet your voice, to stop it from shaking.

He eases forward, and you feel his pulse beating into you from the handle.

“It’s your fate. It should be yours to decide, for once. And you’re safe with me. I swore it.”

You could throw the dagger. You could scream. But you whisper.

“That’s not fair, Thor. Don’t you do this.”

He chuckles like he does.

“These things are never fair…so I want you to decide.”

Leaning down, you give him your sweetest kiss. Pulling the blade up, you squeeze it tight.

Then…

It rolls out of your hands.

“Well…I choose…I choose you, Thor. I choose…life only if it also means freedom.”

He smiles softly, like the clouds parting, like the awakening of the earth after rain. Leaning over the side of the bed, he ruffles through the mess of his clothes. Then, he pushes what he retrieved into your empty palm. A gem on a cord. It pulses with the energy of…

“A veiling spell,” you gasp, “Where did you get this? Tell me you haven’t been playing with magick you don’t understand.”

Stroking your hair, he pulls you in to kiss your head.

Not him. His mother. She gave it to him before his first visit with Odin. With poetry he thought was nonsense, she told him it would be luck for him, that the charms would open his eyes to see one who to others couldn’t be.

It can’t be this easy. He’s handed you freedom, only asking that you choose it. But it can’t be this easy.

He kisses over your face, your neck, he rubs your back, before securing the cord loosely around your neck. A mark of your own self possession.

He whispers some words that sound ancient and ethereal. The charm warms on your skin.

“Now love, this charm will veil your presence, but certainly not a trail of bodies,” he warns as the sun comes up.

“That so, lover?”

Playfulness finds its way into you as your soul opens carefully with the hope of another chance.

“There are wise women in Asgard who make potions to put down men like these. The ones you’re after.”

He raises his hand to your cheek and you nuzzle into it slowly.

“And if I want them in pain?”

“Find one that burns on the way down.”

You feel understood again. You want to sit forever looking at him, but when the birds start to chirp, it jolts him into dressing. You disappear into the closet, and come out in lemon colored sundress.

In the early mornings here, the cold is biting. So you don your charcoal cloak, your last remnant of home.

Home. Can you ever go back?

Standing by the front door, the two of you face each other in silence.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you so long,” he says, thumbing the pendant, “I had to see you… had to know you”—

“That I am safe enough to let live?”

“And that you’ll be alright,” he rumbles.

“But I should’ve known,” he says, looking so soft. “You’ve always been formidable, my queen.”

Your heart stutters. Nearly stops when he bends the knee in front of you, bowing his head. He takes your hands in his, kisses them. There’s so much to say that there is nothing at all.

Standing after some moments, his hand comes behind your neck like it does, and pulls you in for a sweet kiss. It’s deep, passionate, like he doesn’t expect to get another for a while.

He holds with his forehead pressed against yours, and your blood seems to rush like the tide with the bitter sweetness of it.

“Until we meet again,” you breathe.

“Until then.”

—

You spend just one more night in Spain. Years more on Earth.

But tonight, in the smaller home you shack up in, sitting by the hearth, the pendant warms against you. A single feather of light breaks the heart of the sky, and torrents of smooth rains wash the streets.

Dropping your cloak, and feeling—really, you try to remember the last time rain didn’t burn.

You pray for Odins tears to water crops, for the moonlight to reveal bruises and show you lovers of the wicked, and for avenging others to bring you healing.

Then, you lie down for the first good night’s sleep in a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
